aibu to ask what you really think of nurseries and their staff

[questioningmouse]

honestly

unannounced visits are good to do if looking for nursery place.i certainly did
the rub is some nurseries are great,some not
same parents are great,some not

'What danger do you think this may be jellybean if we are talking about a good nursery with low staff turnover etc etc?'

Perhaps danger is a strong choice of word but what I mean is that I feel it is probably not the best place for a very young baby to be in for over 40 hours a week but of course, as you mention, it would depend on the quality of care given in a nursery along with many other variables. I worry about the child's attatchment and feel they might be better with a parent/family member in those first months. But of course, a great nursery wouldn't be as risky as a poor one.

my kids ft nursery,im not reaching for the melanie klein books yet
and not a hint of misgivings

I used to be a teacher and regularly go on the TES website. I do remember a poster there saying she was an OFSTED inspector and out of all the nurseries she inspected would only have left her kids in about 5% of them.

I totally understand why parents HAVE to use nurseries to to say that they are actually beneficial to kids under three is delusional.

BUT to say

The nursery our Ds is in is great. It's a small board run nursery. The staff turnover is minimal, the student to qualified staff ratio is excellent and the continuity of care is fab. They have an on site chef who cooks great meals, outdoor space etc.
Personally I was less keen on using a childminder, it all depends on your own feelings. I'm sure there are bad nurseries and equally great ones.
The reports on the nursery always come back fantastic too.

To balance things a little - I live in an area where there are a lot of childminders and see them in action at the local playgroups. There are some great ones and some fucking awful, borderline abusive ones. Some poor kids are with these women day in day out. It breaks my heart.

Like someone else said earlier - the truth is that you get some people who work with kids because they love working with kids and you get others who do it because caring (for any group in society) is a job that the virtually unskilled can get.

My DD went to two small nurseries. The firt from 5 months to 2yo. I then moved jobs and moved her nursery to one closer to home and she went there until starting school at 4y.

We deliberately chose small nurseries. I visited the nurseries more than once and each one "on passing" with no appointent, before chosing.

DD loved both of her nurseries and thrived at them. We found the staff loviely and carig. Had I been concerned at all I would hae had no hestitation in speaking to them. My DD's welfare was.is the main priority fr me, so if I felt this was an issue of course I'd have spoken out.

I personally have had an extremely good experiene of nuseries with DD and would, if I had another child, use a nursery again for my child, over using a childminder.

It is sad that some people didn't have this as their experience. And as for them commenting who have no experience of using them - well, your choice not to, each to their own.

However, not all nurseries and staff are bad. Many are very good and care for the children they look after!

turdass - if that is the case then the OFSTED inspector must surely have been assessing these nurseries as unsatisfactory. If not, she was not doing her job properly. I would question a person who made such a comment publically - especially whilst acknowledging her job! - who was not then following up her concerns via the right channels.

the reason nursery staff are paid so lowly is because those in power (men) dont consider raising the next generation as important, they have wives to do it after all!

'I live in an area where there are a lot of childminders and see them in action at the local playgroups. There are some great ones and some fucking awful, borderline abusive ones.'

I agree. I suppose it is the same with any service, some is good and some bad, same with parenting in general. Out of the 10 or so childminders I see in action, i would leave my kids with probably 3 of them if i had to. They are the ones that tend to do their own thing and not go round with all the other childminders chatting and leaving their mindees to run amock!!

I worked in a nursery for 6 years in a senior position and in my experience a nursery can be a lovely safe fun place for a child and though alot of the girls that work in them are young , they really do care about the children and form good relationships with parents and children.
My nursery was /is very good but in my opionion I believe that nursery is not suitable for under 1s , this is for a number of reasons such as ;
ratios 1-3 , very busy environment , and just lack of cuddles and kisses purely because your so busy so therefore everything is rushed bottles, changing etc ... But all that said in my experience the children are loved but it's just not right fora baby.

At dd's nursery they aim for 1-2 for the little ones. Had assumed that would be the same everywhere.

Lots of nurseries take babies from 3 months.

No it's not, 1 to 2 sounds much better but by law it's 1-3 so lots of nurseries would go for the most cost effective option .

I had many babies from 3 months 8 years ago but not so common now due to maternity pay.

Sorry, I misread pomme's post there as age 1-2, not ratio. Unfortunately you're lucky to get more than the legal minimum of staff in most private nurseries.

Agree that 3 months isn't very common, but the last 2 nurseries I worked in both had a baby that had gone full time from 3 months.

They don't get many tinies to be fair though. DD started one day a week from 7months and she was the youngest for a bit. Much easy to shuffle to 2-1 if happens rarely I guess.

My local nursery(before cuts) used to have a scheme which enabled 2yr olds from deprived backgrounds to have a certain number of hours childcare per week. Many of these lived in flats without gardens and some had mentally ill or addicted parents who could not even take them out to the local park.

These children gained greatly from nursery as they had access to a large garden and expensive equipment. They were taken on trips and got to play with other children. Any special needs could be identified early and they had access to on site speech and language therapy if required.

Yes in an ideal world perhaps all children should stay at home with their parents until school-age but as there are good and bad nurseries, good and bad childminders etc, there are also SAHP who aren't as well equipped at meeting their children's needs for one reason or another. Nursery education can therefore be a great force for good, ensuring that children who need more help are identified quickly rather than waiting until they turn up at school at five year's old and are developmentally/socially/emotionally way behind their peers.

I obviously cannot speak about all nurseries as my DD has only been to one, but her nursery is wonderful and the staff are kind, loving and make it a place to which DD is excited to go. DD has been known to ask for her key-worker or the nursery manager when we are on holiday! The staff are obviously interested in all the children and enjoy being with them and you often see one of them sitting on the floor with one of the babies happily asleep in her lap.

DH and I couldn't be happier with our decision to send her there. I am sure there are other people who are just as happy using a nanny or a child minder, but as with all these kinds of decisions (and as you would also have to do with a nanny or child minder) we looked around and found a place we were happy with and that we thought would suit DD. As it happens, we chose this one over a couple with better facilities, as this one had such a nice atmosphere. They also strongly encourage parental involvement and for parents to drop in or even spend a few hours or the day there, which I have done in the past. DD was very proud to lead me around and show me the things she likes to play with and to lead me to sit next to her at their lunch table.

Another fantastic aspect of the place is that they have great food and a great variety of food, a lot of which DD will eat at nursery but not at home (peer pressure working in our favour there!)

oh, and she is under two - she has been there since she was one.

Ds goes to nursery 8.30 till 5, 2 days a week. He has since he was 13 months. I am pg with baby 2, and s/he will go for the same amount of time but from 10 months. Personally, I don't like nursery for babies. Under about 18 months. I have read research that implies it isnt a good idea to put young babies in and although it may be flawed I agree with the sentiment. We looked round loads of nurseries before we found a half decent one. Unfortunately I have no choice but to use a nursery, so I think a degree of sensitivity is needed when discussing this topic. If I had a choice though, I wouldn't.

Like all places, they vary. My DD used to go to a preschool, but when we moved, we put her in to a nursery (part time) for children aged 2 to 5. And, wow the difference! The nursery is ten million times better than the preschool we previously used, and I would never go back. Neither would my daughter, who absolutely loves her new nursery.

At my daughter's nursery, almost all the staff are married and mothers. Only 1 /2 of the workers are younger. About 3/4 staff are in their 30s or older. The opportunities they provide for the children have been amazing. Last term, the theme was pets and they arranged to have visits from a tortoise, hamster, cat, dogs, rabbits even a pony! They all got to groom the pony and my daughter loved it. At her nursery, they have hens that they collect eggs from, guinea pigs that they look after, a large outside play area and it is all so calm and quiet. The children are just so happy there. I've never seen any child cry in the mornings and not want to be dropped off. In fact, I once had tears that my daughter cried when we were leaving, as she didn't want to go, and you could tell by the children and staffs reaction, that it was a nursery where they're not used to tears! (Apart from bumps and bruises).

The only issue I have is on a friday, she is cared for by her grandfather. We regularly have tears because she doesn't want to go, as she wants to go to nursery instead. Over half term, we had tears because she wanted to go to nursery and not have the week off.

I now, would never go back to using a preschool. The nursery we are now using really made us reevaluate the preschool we previously used. Sure, DD was happy enough there, but she didn't love it like she loves nursery.

So, this is just my experience of using one nursery... but it would be ridiculous of me to make a blanket statement like "Parents shouldn't use pre schools, they're inferior to paid nurseries, and so they should send them there instead". Of course, there are fantastic pre schools around too, just like there are fantastic childminders. And of course, there are rubbish nurseries, pre schools, childminders and parents as well. We can't generalise, all we can do is to do the best for our children!

one or two of the staff are younger and three quarters of them are in their 30s